Eating is necessary to live: it is one of the simple truths of being a human. Yet, there is more to meals than just basic survival. Sharing a meal with someone is one of the more common sources of social interaction. Oftentimes, it is families sharing meals and recounting their days, but college provides the unique opportunity to sit down and eat dinner with your friends every day. It is something that I deeply value when I am at school: my friends and I will sit in the dining hall for an hour every night for dinner, just chatting. Our food often grows cold before we finish it, too busy chatting about everything and nothing. I was more than pleased to find that the same connection could be made here at Indium Corporation.
My intern group has several of us who are from out of town, so we are staying in the dorms at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. We all officially met on the first day of our internship while we were going over the basics of what our jobs and time at Indium Corporation would look like. Soon enough, we had a group chat, and we all walked to dinner together later that night. We ended up talking for an hour over dinner. It felt like I had fallen right back into the same kind of comforting dinners I was used to at college. It settled me into both living in the dorms and the internship through connections.
The dinners did not end with that first night. We go to dinner together every night at six, we still sit at a table in the dining hall for nearly an hour, talking about our days. We recap our daily experimentation or the progress we have made with our projects that day, as well as a range of other things, from stories about our college lives to our music tastes. These conversations have made dinner so much more than just a meal that we must eat to live; it is a time to socialize and connect with my friends. I continue to look forward to our nightly dinners every night, and even if I have a bad case of the “Mondays”, I know at the end of the day, I get to enjoy dinner with friends.
The group of us in the dorms also share time when meal prepping for lunch. We have sat in the small dorm kitchen laughing as we prepare food for later in the week. Even after sitting together for dinner right before meal prepping, we still find things to talk about with no difficulty, the conversation always seems to flow with such ease. I would like to attribute the ease to food, but it could also be that Indium Corporation seems to hire the kindest people.
It has stood out to me how kind people are; of course, sharing meals helps to form connections, but people themselves are ultimately the deciding factor. At Indium Corporation, there has been no shortage of people who are willing to go above and beyond to help me, or people who offer me a bright greeting and seem excited to meet me. The internship at Indium Corporation is set up to help us build our skills, but also our connections, both personal and corporate. Communication with our supervisors is an important piece of this internship, as is connection with the larger team we are a part of. I have been able to sit in on team meetings and was warmly welcomed. The lunch-and-learns we participate in as interns also help to build our friendships with each other.
Sharing meals is not just limited to the other interns who live at SUNY Poly. The lunch-and-learns have provided an opportunity to chat with the interns who I do not see as often, those who are at other sites or those who do not dorm. This has offered me the opportunity to learn about the projects the other interns are working on, as well as who they are as people. We laugh and share stories while we eat our delicious food made by the company chef. Then, after the lunch-and-learn, we take our official thirty-minute lunch, sitting on the couch upstairs in HQ and continuing to talk before we all go back to our work, and those of us on other sites drive back and finish up our day.
The lunch-and-learns have allowed me to connect with the interns who may not be as frequently seen in my daily routine. Recently we celebrated one of the interns’ birthday by going out for dinner at the Lucky Dog Bistro in Clinton (which had amazing food, by the way). Those of us that went out spent the entire time laughing and sharing stories, and by the end of dinner, my stomach hurt from laughing so much. Then, those of us who were able to went out for gelato just down the road, and we laughed some more as the sun set over the roofs of small shops across the street. Yet again, food provided the venue for conversations, connections, and friendships, but it was the people who truly shaped the resulting friendship.
That friendship did not just end after our meal was over. Instead, as we all settled down for what I can only assume (based on my own habits) was a nightly doomscroll, the messages flooded into my inbox. I posted a picture of our ice cream to my story, being sure to tag the others who were with me, and they each shared the picture to their own story or messaged me fondly about dinner. My face lit up at each one, knowing we all enjoyed the dinner and gelato, but perhaps even more that we had enjoyed each other’s company.
The enjoyment of each other’s company was the critical piece in forming friendships and connections. While food and shared meals were part of the cause of our connection, it was not the only factor. We had to have the initiative to chat rather than sit in silence. Even beyond just beginning to talk, we needed to be willing to talk about things that were not just work related to be able to truly connect. It can be a big challenge to share stories that show who you are as a person, rather than just a fellow intern, but when surrounded by the kindness of the other interns, it felt much easier. It is only with sincerity that you can truly form relationships that will stick with you. I have found with the fellow interns, and even the others working at Indium Corporation, this sincerity is easy to come by. Even early into my internship, food has begun to bring the other interns and I together. The friendships we formed cannot be credited just to food though; it has been everyone’s kindness and willingness to share stories that formed that. In part, I think Indium Corporation can be credited for choosing to hire some of the kindest people, which makes communication and relationship-building much simpler. So, when another intern or a coworker asks you to get food together, say yes, because food is not just nutrients; it is a path for friendships that may shape your summer, or maybe even the rest of your life.
